The night will be long, p.9
The Night Will Be Long, page 9
Sometimes the prosecutor would stare out at those lights and, overwhelmed by reality, would imagine heartrending scenes: children begging their mothers not to do drugs and feed them instead, fathers beating those same children, men punching pregnant women, drunk men raping their wives in front of young children. It wasn’t all like that, of course. Most of those households were just struggling to get by, honest people trying to make it in back-breaking, ill-paid jobs, but his experience insisted on showing him the other side: the savage face of the ferocious, indifferent city, the scarred and wounded skin of this wretched metropolis that swallowed up its most vulnerable children alive.
When he left his office and walked to the end of the hall to get some hot water for tea from the communal urn next to the elevator, he could see the lights of northern Bogotá. The opulent, wealthy end of the city. That sight evoked other crimes, more compatible with the view, since in Bogotá crime, too, is stratified by social class. Those hills housed the corruption of congressmen and civil servants, illegal commissions obtained for prominent families, the pilfering of public funds validated through contracts, influence peddling, tax evasion, the misappropriation of resources, breach of public duties, fraud, and every possible and conceivable form of theft, but at high—astronomically high—rates. The difference was that the northern thieves stole millions of dollars, so they were arrogant, lazy, and depressed: the domestic factory for social contempt and violence. Of course in the north there were also rapes and beatings, drug addicts and psychopaths, murder and femicide, abuse of minors and exploitation and assault, Jutsiñamuy would remind himself. They’re not as desperate, but they’re the same species.
Musing on the crimes inflicted on Colombia’s citizens by day-to-day life, he decided to take a look at the news bulletin from the Office of the Prosecutor General itself. He switched on his computer and opened the page. What’s on the menu today? What have we got?
He read:
April 27, 201– / 8:47 P.M. /
Seven families received psychological, psychosocial, and legal support from the Office of the Prosecutor General, in collaboration with the Unit for Holistic Aid and Redress to Victims (UARIV), to assist them in preparing to receive the remains of their family members, who were victims of the Colombian conflict.
The interagency support team of forensic pathologists and odontologists, psychologists, social workers, and other professionals worked for three days with the thirty-five relatives of the victims, whose bodies were exhumed between 2011 and 2016 in Florencia (Caquetá) and in the departments of Tolima and Meta. The homicides were committed by participants in the country’s armed conflict.
Seventeen years after she was disappeared, Yolima Orozco Arango’s family received her remains. She vanished from a rural area outside Palo Cabildo (Tolima) while working as a physician’s assistant. On March 10, 2017, the incident was attributed to the arm of the Self-Defense Forces of the Magdalena Medio led by Omar Isaza.
Javier Castellanos was last seen in the year 2007. He was killed in combat in 2008 in Puerto Rico (Meta). His exhumation was carried out in accordance with Agreement #62, signed in Havana, Cuba.
Also exhumed under this agreement was the body of Luis Emiro Mejía Carvajal, whose family never heard from him again after Holy Week in the year 2000.
On April 8, 2000, José Abel Tafur was taken along with several family members by an unlawful armed group in Morelia (Caquetá). After three days his family was freed. His body was recovered in the rural settlement of Palmarito outside Florencia, the capital of Caquetá.
The victims also include Edison Varón Alarcón, who left his farm along with his brother and another man. Following a tip received by Justice and Peace in 2009, the criminology team exhumed the body in 2014.
At the Office of the Prosecutor General’s request, the body of Daniel Sanabria was also exhumed in 2011, but the crime against him was committed on August 16, 2000.
Additionally, Sergio Guarnizo Rodríguez, twenty-three years old, disappeared in 2003, when he was loaded into an SUV. His whereabouts thereafter were unknown. Along with his body, three other bodies were also recovered.
The judicial proceedings took place in the Hotel Lusitania in the city of Ibagué (Tolima) through the Search Unit for Disappeared Persons run by the National Office of Transitional Justice of the Prosecutor General.
The menu presented some appealing options, but when he reread the entries, he saw that they were all incidents from the past. The vast wave of war, now subsided, was still tossing bodies up onto the sand. The country was still uprooting its beautiful blanket of vegetation to exhume the thousands of lonely bones so that each one could reclaim its name and tell its story. “Colombia: a box of bones,” he said aloud.
The ring of his cell phone startled him from his musings. He patted the pockets of his pants and shirt—where the hell had he put it? With the echoing acoustics in the office, the sound seemed to come from everywhere. The pocket of his jacket, hanging from the coat rack. He jumped toward it. If there was one thing he hated, it was failing to pick up the phone. He considered it a minor defeat. He calculated one more ring just as he spotted his phone, on a bookcase across the office. He lunged for it, but missed, and his hand knocked it skidding over several large binders and onto the floor. When he finally snatched it up and hit the button to answer, it had gone silent.
“Damn it!”
He saw Laiseca’s number on the screen.
“I didn’t reach it in time,” he said. “What’s up? Did you find something?”
“Nothing, boss,” Laiseca said. “Not in Cali or Popayán, and not at any of the smaller police offices either. The problem is there aren’t killings like this anymore. These days it’s all small-ball stuff: crimes against social activists, scandals, sicarios with two-for-one deals, revenge beatings by local thugs and wannabe mobsters. Stabbings. There’s a lot of that stuff.”
“Keep looking,” Jutsiñamuy said. “Ask for the reports from the provincial police stations. Maybe bodies have been dumped in remote areas. Remember: we’re looking for gunshots from a 7.62 rifle or a .52 machine gun.”
“At your orders, boss. Over and out.”
After hanging up, Jutsiñamuy called the forensic pathologist. “All right, Piedrahíta,” he said, “what did you find inside those stiffs?”
The pathologist was speaking from the autopsy theater at the coroner’s office, where he was still working.
They’d known each other more than twenty-five years.
“Well, they are in fact from two different incidents. One’s been dead about two weeks, and the other two are from within the last five days. I may be off, but not by much. The caliber of bullet is different too. The one who’s been dead longer is the young guy, thirty-five. Four through-and-throughs. A nine-millimeter, something homemade. The other two, on the other hand, suffered much more serious injuries: one, destruction of the right lung with a lot of bleeding, the heart perforated at the mitral and tricuspid valves. The other, shattering of the skull, wounds at the clavicle and neck.”
“What caliber?”
“Point five-two. Machine gun. Pretty heavy weaponry for peace time.”
There was a silence. The pathologist spoke again. “Tell me if I need to pack a suitcase and leave the country.”
“What are you talking about, man? You didn’t leave even when things were totally fucked. It’s weird, though. I hope the old conflict isn’t surfacing again.”
“I was thinking that,” Piedrahíta said. “I’ve been getting nothing but stab wounds and small bullet holes for a while now. These ones scared me.”
“How far away were the shooters?”
“I’d guess about fifty meters.”
“From above?” Jutsiñamuy asked.
“Yes, exactly,” Piedrahíta said. “Wow, you’re learning!”
“The young woman who was at the crime scene said it.”
“Oh, I remember,” Piedrahíta said. “I met her last year during that case with the guy where they amputated everything and cut off his balls. She’s sort of Indian-looking?”
“Jesus, Piedrahíta, remember I’m the Indian here.”
“All right, sorry. Don’t be so touchy. You told me about her. The guerrilla girl.”
“Yeah, her. Ex-guerrilla.”
“Well, she knows her stuff, because seeing all that without opening the bodies up isn’t easy.”
“Anything else worth noting?” Jutsiñamuy asked.
“The young man’s stomach was empty, which is weird. And he was in cold storage for a few days. I sent off for blood and tissue analysis. If anything pops up, I’ll call you.”
“Were you able to identify him?”
“His fingerprints are worn off, but they’re working on it. The other two we got.”
“Who are they?” Jutsiñamuy asked.
“Their names are—or, rather, were—Óscar Luis Pedraza and Nadio Becerro, both from Bugalagrande, thirty-eight and thirty-two years old, respectively. We’ve even got their social security numbers. They worked for a security firm, SecuNorte, based in Cali. What’s strange is that in addition to the injuries I’ve already described, they were both finished off execution-style in the base of the skull.”
“Really?” the prosecutor said, surprised. “People say it doesn’t hurt that way.”
“Come on down and ask them if you like,” Piedrahíta said. “They look pretty relaxed here on the trays.”
“According to the word on the street.”
“Well, unfortunately I’ve never been shot in the back of the head. So I can’t confirm.”
“Do they look like drug dealers?”
“Haha, don’t make me laugh. In this country anyone who gets shot and dumped on the side of the road looks like a drug dealer. Especially if nobody reports him missing. But those who die are victims. Don’t forget that. They have their own dignity and tragedy about them.”
“You’re awfully philosophical today, Piedrahíta. Why is that?”
“You need some erudition to understand this shitshow, don’t you think?”
“All right, Prof,” Jutsiñamuy said, “I’ll let you get back to work. Send me the reports when they’re ready.”
He hung up and sat thinking a while: So yes, the caliber suggests that two of the bodies could be from the shoot-out at San Andrés de Pisimbalá. But why put bodies from different incidents together? Were they trying to disguise the other one? And who’s stupid enough to think we wouldn’t realize? Or the opposite: did they leave him there precisely so we would realize? The exciting thing about this work, he thought, was that it always took him to the far reaches of human existence: of its idiocy or its cynicism.
Feeling agitated, he tried to settle his thoughts before pursuing his theories any further. He removed his shoes, lay down on the wicker sofa, and stretched his legs up against the wall. This would send the blood to his brain, but he didn’t have to do it for long. Just seven minutes. After that he put on a CD of jungle sounds: wind in the trees, a gentle waterfall, water flowing over rocks, a bird taking flight . . .
At about ten that night, with something he couldn’t pinpoint niggling at him, he decided to call Piedrahíta again. The forensic pathologist had just arrived home.
“What’s going on? Having a hard time sleeping tonight?”
“I’m still at the office, turning this over in my head,” Jutsiñamuy said.
“As soon as we get the results of the blood and tissue analyses,” Piedrahíta said, “I’ll finish up my report and send it over to your office. Ten tomorrow, max. So relax. Have a beer or a drink and put on a movie. There are some great series on Netflix.”
Jutsiñamuy tapped his finger on his desk twice and said, “Tell me something. Was there anything else about the bodies that caught your attention?”
“Anything else? Like what?”
“Tattoos, for example.”
“They do have tattoos, a lot of them. But everybody has that stuff these days. You can see them in the photos.”
“All three men?”
“I think so.”
Jutsiñamuy took a deep breath before he spoke. “You’re going to have to forgive me, Piedrahíta, but I’m coming by to pick you up in thirty minutes. I have to see those bodies tonight.”
The pathologist cleared his throat and was silent a moment. “Well, law and justice before health. I will ask that when you come you get out of the car so my wife can see you from the window and won’t get suspicious.”
“Absolutely. I’m on my way. Still in Torres del Parque?”
“They’re never getting me out of here alive.”
Despite the late hour, the traffic was still heavy in Bogotá. The falling drizzle was only a respite between downpours. The entire country was enduring severe rains and melting like a cube of sugar. The earth had become too saturated to absorb any more water.
Arriving at Torres del Parque, he got out of the car while his driver went over to talk to the guard. Before leaving he’d stuck a bottle of wine in his briefcase to give to Piedrahíta. It was the forensic pathologist’s job to handle cases at any hour of day or night, but he believed in personal gestures. Plus he didn’t drink. He couldn’t remember who had given him that bottle or why. It had been in his office for more than six months.
The forensic pathologist didn’t smile when he saw him; he only shook Jutsiñamuy’s hand, a worried look on his face. He was wearing his pajamas under his suit. Jutsiñamuy looked up at the sixth floor and saw that the curtain was being drawn back. He raised his hand and waved.
“That’ll be enough to reassure her,” Piedrahíta said. “At this time of night, the only reason to go out is usually that somebody’s died.”
“Just think,” Jutsiñamuy said, “we’ve got three.”
“That’s what I told her.”
They drove through the Egipto neighborhood, which was populated with beggars, crack smokers, and hurrying pedestrians. They headed down 7th Street to Third Millennium Park—it was a strange name, futuristic and hopeful in a city that seemed on the brink of self-destruction. Watching the “dregs” of society preparing their doses so they would sleep easy, Piedrahíta mused, “I imagine the corpses of all of these people while they’re still alive; they still move and talk and have their memories, but they’re already dead. Humans are nothing, really, aren’t we?”
“Nothing at all,” Jutsiñamuy interrupted, bringing him back down to earth. “But don’t start getting philosophical. We’re going to see our guys.”
The three bodies were on metal trays stored in a refrigerated cabinet.
“More light, more light,” Jutsiñamuy said, bending over to study their tattoos.
He peered eagerly at the images imprinted on the bodies, studying them through a magnifying glass. What was he looking for? The two more recent bodies had a lot of symbols: suns with rays of light, gothic letters, images of Jesus on the cross, naked women with the name “Yeni.” The prosecutor scrutinized them again and again. He took photos with his cell phone.
“Can we turn them over?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
A nurse, possibly an intern, turned the bodies over. They saw more tattoos: falcons, names, ribbons, daggers, harps, horses, tigers. The prosecutor eagerly studied them until finally pausing on one.
“There it is!” Jutsiñamuy said exultantly. “Look at this one!” He pointed to the ribs of the man named Óscar Luis Pedraza: the tattoo of an open hand, in shades of black and gray, with the words “We are healed.” Nadio Becerra had the same image on his right shoulder, and the John Doe under his left nipple.
“‘We are healed,’” Piedrahíta read. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Maybe it means the three of them are from the same team,” Jutsiñamuy concluded. “Just because they didn’t die on the same day doesn’t mean they weren’t part of the same clan, or cartel.”
“Or one of those weird churches,” Piedrahíta said. “The phrase sounds more like evangelicals than it does drug dealers.”
“I was just about to say that. You took the words out of my mouth.”
“How did you know they had those tattoos?”
“I didn’t,” the prosecutor said. “But a few days back I saw a TV show about Salvadoran gang members. Their tattoos identified which group they were with. I remembered that and thought we might get somewhere if these three had any that match.”
They took photos and looked to see whether the bodies shared any other features, but they didn’t find anything. They left the lab sometime after two. Jutsiñamuy thought of Julieta and sent her a message: “Call me when you wake up. I’ve got something good.” Then, stretching his arms, he asked his companion, “Should I take you home, or shall we get some food?”
